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ADDRESSES 



AT THE INAUGURATION 



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rRESIDENT JUNK IN. 



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TWO 



ADDRESSES 



DELIVERED AT X S^ R D , OHIO 



ON 



OCCASION OF THE 



INAUGURATION OF REV. GEO. JUNKIN, D. D. 



AS 



PRESIDENT OF MIAMI UNIVERSITY. 

It 



CINCINNATI: 

'WESTEBN CHURGH fBESS. 

1841. 



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4 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 



On the 9th of July, 1824, Rev. R. H. Bishop, D. D., who had been long and 
advantageously known as a Professor in Transylvania University, in the State of 
Kentucky, was chosen as President of Miami University. On the 15th of the 
following November, the first meeting of the Faculty was held, and the regular 
College exercises commenced. The inauguration of the President took place om 
the 30th of March, 1825. At the meeting of the Board of Trustees in August, 
1840, Dr. Bishop signified his intention to retire from the Presidency as soon as- 
the services of a successor could be secured; and at a meeting of the Board a few- 
months afterwards. Rev. George Junkin, D. D., President of Lafayette College, 
Pa., was chosen to the Presidency of Miami University. Dr. Junkin accepted t^e 
appointment; entered on the duties of his office on the 12th of April, 1841; and 
the 11th of August following was appointed as the day of his inauguration. Qa 
that day, in the presence of a large eoncourse of people, the ceremonies of inaugu- 
ration were performed in the following order, viz: After prayer by Rev. J. C. 
Barses, an address was delivered by Rev. H. V. D. Johns; the keys and the 
charge were delivered, and the oath of office administered, to the President elect, 
by Col. John JoHtfSTON; when the Presideat addressed the assemblv, and the 
whole was closed with prayer by Rev. H. Millan. Copies of the addresses de- 
livered by Mr. Johns and the President were requested by the Board, and 2000 
copies of them ordered to be priritad. "With this notice they are here presented t* 
the public. 

By order of the Board of Trustees. 

David Maediel, ) ,-, 

¥. B. MiLLiKK.; I Committee. ^ 

Eossville, Ohio, ") 

August 30, 1841. y 



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^ 



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AN ADDRESS, 



DELIVERED AT THE INAUGURATION 



©F 



THE PRESIDENT OF MIAMI UNIVERSITY. 



OXFORD, OHIO, AUGUST, 1841. 



BY REV. HENRY V. D. JOHNS. 



PUBLI3HED BY ©RDES OP THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 



f 



■A EELI6I0US AND PATRIOTIC OBEBIENCE TO DULY COKSTITXJTED AUTHORITY. A 
PBIMAKY OBLIGATION OF AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP. 



Brethren and Friends: — 

\ - 

1 have selected the subject just announced for the occasion which 
has convened us. We are to witness the inauguration of the 
recently elected President of Miami University, an event peculiarly 
interesting and pregnant with hope for this seat of literature and art. 

I shall detain you but a few moments, although the theme is so 
Importune, that it might justly claim an extended development; 
but my motive for brevity, is the wish to afford the mind of this 
audience fresh and unwearied, to the address which will follow in 
the order of the exercises of the day. 

Studious, however, as I am, of condensing what 1 have to say 
upon the subject just named, lam too sensible of the obligations 
which this occasion originates, to withhold the full utterance of 
my views. The season is favorable for considering just such a 
topic as has been proposed, for the very air which we breathe, as 
it wafts to us from every section of our land, the tidings of the day, 
tells the humiliating story of outraged rights, growing insubordina- 
tion, and popular disregard for the salutary restraints of law. In 
times like these, how necessary is it to lift the voice and proclaim, 
that " a religious and patriotic obedience to duly constituted 
authority is a primary obligation of an American citizen?" 

I stay not to prove the proposition which is now proposed to 
you ; I should as soon think of attempting to demonstrate any oae 
of the plainest axioms of science. The sentence on which our 
subject is couched, contains a truth which shines with a self-evident 
brightness, as clear and vivid as the stars of our national banner. 
We as citizens have entrusted the sacred deposit of our civil and 
religious liberty, not so much to the sword, the bayonet and the 



8 

cannon, as to the guardianship of written laws, divine andh^man. 
Obedience to these laws, and to the authority bj which they are 
duly executed, is manifestly a primary religious and patriotic obli- 
gation of American citizenship; an obligation, the sacredness of 
which, can only be estimated by the unspeakable value of the 
interests at stake. What other nations have struggled for, and 
shed torrents of blood to secure, we profess to have obtained, and 
proclaim to the world, that we are a free, that is, a self-governed 
people; living with an enlarging national prosperity under the 
broad arch of just and e ual laws, derived from God and our own 
elective legislative assemblies. But what is the key-stone of this 
arch? I answer, a virtuous, health}^, and intelligent state of the 
national conscience, tenderly sensitive to the obligation of prompt 
and cordial obedience to duly constituted authority. So long as 
this lives in the breasts of our fellow citizens, we are safe, nor shall 
we ever blush at discovering that our confidence in republican 
institutions has been misplaced. But w^th a waning public virtue 
and a lax and easy conscience, in regard to the universal obedience 
to law which we should render, the key-stone of the arch of Ameri- 
can freedom crumbles, ruin follows, and we are crushed as a nation. 
Religion and patriotism, therefore, bind this obligation of obedi- 
ence to duly constituted authority, upon the honor and the con- 
science of every citizen. We should drink it in , with our mother's 
milk and cause it to grow with our growth, and strengthen with 
our strength. In its preservation are involved our dearest rights, 
our most valued possessions, and hence the man who directly or 
indirectly, either by failing to execute, evading or insulting the 
laws of the land, contributes to the weakening of this obligation, 
should not only be viewed as a traitor to his countrj^, but an enemy 
alike to God and man. In trampling law, he invades the general 
welflire; and in spurning the restraints of duly constituted autho- 
rity, he assists either in driving society backward to a state of 
nature, or in urging it recklessly into despotism. These are the 
alternatives to which mankind must have recourse when divine and 
human laws and authority fail in protecting their dearest rights, 
society dissolves, or evokes, the iron sceptre of military despotism — 
cither of these extremes, odious as they arc, being justly esteemed 
preferable to a government of law in name, but of brute violence 
in fact. 



9 

- I' presume with sanguine confidence upon the nnoraland patriotic 
intelligence of this audience, in believing that they accord with 
me in these sentimehts. The time has come when religion and 
patriotism must awake to the duty under consideration. The 
Christian patriot must ask, what are his responsibilities under the 
scriptural charge, ^Hhe powers that be, are ordained of God:" — 
'" render unto Cassar the things that are Caesars;" "honor all men: 
love the Brotherhood; fear God; honor the king." The republi- 
can paraphrase of which is, "honor the government." And tvhat 
are his bounden obligations under the great charter of the Ameri- 
can Constitution? Has he no work to do when a spirit of evil 
import stalks abroad through the land, and threatens the very 
foundations of public order with wanton insult? Would to God 
that our fellow-citizens could be led to see that this obligation is 
no trivial matter, which they may respect or not, but one which is 
bound upon their individual virtue and honor. We are all inter- 
ested in these inquiries ; as it is a conceded point, that in our coun- 
try, the stability and expectiveness of our institutions depend, under 
God, on the state of public sentiment-^the aggregate tone of the 
thought and feeling of the nation. 

Brethren and fellow-citizens, can we name a principle, which, if 
generally diffused and rightly apprehended, will be of sufficient 
energy, to ensure the success of the great scheme of government 
under which we live? A principle so energetic and conservative, 
as to render n governmeijt of law every where, in our schools, or 
sanctuaries, and in the state, a safer protection for the right of 
person and property, than a government of force? 1 believe that 
we have named this principle when we announced the theme of 
our address; and that it is to be found in the conviction, which 
should be lodged in the mind of every American ybtit^ and citizen, 
that it is his duty as a religious patriot, to render a cheerful obedi- 
ence to every form of public authority duly constituted; and not 
only to obey, but to aid in sustaining such authoritj^ ♦ 

The state of our country, and the great experiment of govern- 
ment which is here being made, calls for the union of the wise and 
good of all names and parties; and for the concentration of their 
influence, in sustaining this principle and in placing it on its true 
basis, religion and patriotism. Our whole frame of government, 
and the entire structure of American society, proceed upon the 



w 

supposition that our citizens will virtually respect their own laws, 
and be ready to vindicate tltem when abused. We have solemnly 
assigned the power of making laws to our State and national leg- 
islators. The exposition of these laws to our judiciary, and the 
execution of these laws to the executive officers of our State and 
general government; and here I may observe, that these remarks 
are equally relevant to our ecclesiastical and literary institutions. 
The people of our common country have so decreed: but of late 
their solemn decree has been scorned and insulted. A doctrine 
has been promulgated in the high places of official power, and 
hastily espoused by the enemies of republican liberty, which virtu- 
ally recalls these grants of power from our Legislatures, judiciary 
and executive; confuses and destroys the division and distribution 
of power, and bids each private cititizen, whenever he feels himself 
agrieved, take the law into his own hands, and interpret and exe- 
cute it as he deems proper. A fatal, deadly doctrine this, specious 
and fascinating as it may at times appear, and defended by pleas 
drawn from the fancied necessities of the times; a doctrine dear 
to the heart of despotism, but over which, if allowed, the star-span- 
gled banner can not long wave in peace. 

It is not to be denied, that for some years past, the spirit of law- 
less insubordination has been on the fearful increase through our 
borders, and that all the officers of public authority in institutions 
of a civil or literary character have been conscious of a growing 
difficulty in the dis/charge of their public duties. Witness the im- 
potency of the speaker^s chair in our halls of national legislation; 
the confusion, and tumult, and gross personality in debate. The 
mouth of the pistol spcakinj^:, where the rule of order and the 
speaker's chaif, should- have been all that was necessary. Mark 
the effectbf sufh exajiiplc in our Stale legislative bodies. Behold 
the subjects of 'public justice torn from our jails, and executed by 
the*p^ulac^; aiWmportant commercial ci(y east of the mountains, 
for ay^iy at least>abandoned to the fury of a mob; a whole body 
of singularly deVuHed men it is true, but not for that, in the eye of 
our laws to be oujUftwed, — expelled from the state in which they 
lived. RecalliVl>o ?inxiety felt by the lovers of peace and order, 
on the eve of thor elections of tlic last Autumn, multitudes of citi- 
zens going armed to the polls. Suffer me to point you to the un- 
happy relations of our government to the greatest maralime power 



ri 

of the world, arising entirely from tlie disregard of a handful of 
our citizens for the sanctity of law. What are all these things, 
but signs of evil import — symptoms of a growing want of respect 
for the guardianship of law, and for existing public authority? 
And hence the remark, which may too often be heard from Maine 
to Georgia, that " the time has come when we want a stronger 
government." There is throughout our country, humiliating as is 
the confession, an increasing sense of insecurity in every right. 
Distrust is written upon the national countenance; and the Ameri- 
can citizen is more respected and safe abroad in foreign lands, than 
in many sections of his own home» 

Such is the state of our country at this hour, and the evil origi- 
nates, where! but in criminal abandonment of the obligation alike 
of religion and of patriotism, to respect and obey duly appointed 
public authority. Our laws, what are they but the ordinances of 
God? And our public officers — dare we, with the Bible in our 
hand, regard them in any other light than as the ministers of God 
to us? Official station, the will of God to the contrary, notwith- 
standing, is less and less respected every day; and the love of order 
and of law is giving way before the hydra-spirit of liberty, so call- 
ed, but of a licentiousness in fact. 

The hopes of freedom rest upon the expulsion of these odious 
principles and practices, and upon the ditiusion of a religious and 
patriotic sense of the obligation of every good citizen to render a 
ready and generous obedience to duly constituted public authority; 
for the national conscience seems to have become seared upon this 
subject. 

In making these declarations, f am not advocating the exploded 
doctrine of passive obedience; or forgetting the principles so glo- 
riously set forth by our forefathers in the Revolutionary contest, 
and by our Protestant Reformers, in their illustrious toils. Those 
principles are sacred, and sealed in the best blood that ever flowed 
in the cause of human freedom. I am urging the duty of obedi- 
ence to duly constituted authority, authority rightfully oppointed^ the 
sources of which are found in the public will, deliberately express- 
ed; our own selected, elected, instituted officers, — executing our 
own laws, and carrying into operation our own government. I am 
urging obedience to such authority, as enjoined upon us, alike by 
coBsiderations of religion as of patriotism; for we can not render 



12; 

to God the things that are God's, unless we render to Caesar the 
things that are Caesars. As we are the nnost free people on earthy, 
we need more than all others, a loftier than Roman virtue in our 
devotion to the sacredness of public auLhoritj. Hence, I call it a 
religious and patriotic obligation, one which descends from God 
and strilces its roots deep in our piety and love of country. We 
should therefore guard the energy and majesty of law as we would 
the apple of our eye. As a high self-respect is the only true foun- 
dation of character in individuals, and as the man w^ho loses it is 
lost, so an elevated respect for their own laws and officers is the 
only basis of national glory; if it wanes, dishonor and ruin are 
inevitable, and the American eagle abandons her proud position 
among the armorial emblems of the older nations of the world. 

But how shall this sterling devotion to the maintenance of public virtue 
he sustained? Whence springs the danger adverted to, and who 
are the parents of existing evils in the land? 

There are those who will disingenuously tell you that w^e are 
indebted to the emigrants from other countries /or those acts of 
lawless violence, which of late, have so abounded in the land. I ~ 
view this change as utterly gratuitous. Fugitives from justice 
in other lands, who. sometimes escape to ours, may be expected 
to be vicious and insubordinate; but, take them as a whole, 1 be- 
lieve the vast body of emigrants now located among us, are as 
much, if not more, disposed to respect (he laws, than numbers of 
our native born citizens. 

Others attribute the evils we are lamenting, to certain distinc- 
tions, now allowed in conrts of justice, increasing the difficulty of 
convicting public criminals. 

A third class trace the matter to the influence of (lie peniten-: 
tiary system of punishment, and point with good reason to the 
facility with which convicts can abreviate their terms of confine- 
ment, by artfully arranged appeals to false sympathy in the bosom 
of the executive. And I am free in expressing an ut(er want of 
confidence in this mode of penal judgment. U is not to be com- 
pared with the English method of transportajtion for life, either in 
Iiumanity to the convict, or in just consideration for the virtuous 
portion of society. An experienced keeper of one of the best 
j-cgulated penitentiaries in our country, inJorraed me that of some 
Jiundrcds of cases which had been under his cliarge^but three or 



13 

fdur even seemed to give any hopes of nnoral reformation. When 
released from confinement, how uniformly do they return to erime; 
and often wi^h a mahgnity which would seem to sliow, that instead 
of having the one demon expelled from their bosom by the disci- 
pline of the cell, seven wicked spirits, more'abandoned than the 
first, had entered in and dwelt there. Solitude has never yet been 
known to mend the morals either of the monk or the convict, while 
enlightened Christian legislation, points to New South Wales, 
with its schools and churches, founded by transported colonized 
convicts. Wiiat is there to prevent the United States from adopt- 
ing a similar plan. But while we admit the evils of the penitentiary 
system of punishment, view with abhorrence the practice of bring- 
ing the work done by convicts into market, to compete with the 
products of the labor of our honest and virtuous mechanics, and 
expect nothing but an increase of crime, so long as the present 
mode is continued, we must look deeper for the cause of the spirit 
of violence, than thp,fc|ases will justify. 

Others are ready to accuse the literature of our country, and 
■especially the periodical forms of it, which are said to be secular, 
imaginative, demoralizing, and to lack the ingredients suited to 
make us a sober, thinking people, familiar with great principles, 
in morals, politics and religion. But while every virtuous citizen 
must regret the too frequent abusiveness of the press, especially 
in times of high parly excitement; reflection and observation may 
suggest to him the idea, that in a government like ours, the free- 
dom of the press is the safety valve of popular excitement, without 
which ruinous explosions would be inevitable; and that while 
much that is pestilential flows from these fountains, salutary streams 
are also to be seen. If the literature of our country is occasionally 
disgraced by alliances v/ith immoral and pernicious principles^ it 
is certainly also a powerful auxiliary to the cause of truth and 
order. 

But in reference to these, and other causes as they are called, 
of the evils of insubordination in our country, it is probably nearer 
the truth to say, they are not causes, but effects; signs and symp- 
toms of a disease which lies deeper in the social system. 

I trace the evil to an infidel perversion of the very spirit of our 
free iestitutidns, which, for years past, has been insidiously dififus- 
ing itself through our whole social system. First, relaxing parental 



14 

authority, and the just government ofthe domestic circle ; entering 
next our schools and seminaries of learning, depressing the autho- 
rity ofthe teacher, and elevating the independence of the pupil; 
thence passing to our ecclesiastical bodies, turning aside the ancient 
discipline and overturning the ancient creeds, confessions and 
forms of faith and worship; swelling out in proud and angry con- 
troversy, and afterwards flow'ing in mischievous malignity over the 
surface of the political world, the vast mass of the public mind and 
sentiment. Here is the evil which now threatens, and more than 
threatens the peace and order of American society. I call it a 
false, infidel notion of liberty, derived not from the word of God 
or the Constitution of our government; but from a perversion of 
the spirit of our free institutions, born in revolutionary France, but 
fostered now in America, and which, I fear, as a desolating popular 
delusion, will yet bathe the world in blood, before it is hushed to 
rest; for, if this destructive and delusive error reaches maturity, 
government ceases to exist, and the civ^ped world will hold 
America responsible for tlie results. 

I should be happy in being pointed to a single form of authority 
either domestic or social, civil or ecclesiastical, natural or conven- 
tional, state or national, which has not been weakened, or at least 
shaken by its influence. 

The parentlaments the growingdifiiculties of domestic discipline, 
and the master the loss of neces^sary control over his apprentice. 
The child, too, early asserts his liberty, and grows up a stranger to 
the habit of obedience; while the apprentice is but half taught the 
art which he was too free to receive at the humiliating cost ofthe 
necessary subordination. It almost seems that those restraints 
which were once thought salutary, now serve but to teach man- 
kind insubordination. Easy facilities for obtaining divorce, invite 
to the frequency of appeals for unclasping the marriage contract; 
while the chartered riglUs of investments dedicated to benevolent 
and literary purposes, are allowed to be alienated or invaded; and 
of course, a large artery of pious benevolence is likely to be her- 
metically sealed. 

Teaciicrs of youth are painfully conscious of accumulating per- 
plexity, and lose much time in sadly ineffectual discipline which 
might, under better influences, be appropriated to instruction. 
Teachers used to be called school masters; but now, the name is 



15 

offensive, and the salutary authority which the name imports, is 
intolerable; it must give way to moral suasion, and all those ap- 
pliances by which educ^on may be conducted without injury to 
the fiery independence ofthe pupil, and in keeping with our free 
institutions. The teacher must be humbled at every step, for fear 
of breaking the spirit of his pupil ; just as if the lesson of obedience 
was not the first that should be incukated, and ihe last to be neg- 
lected, in forming the mind of i^inerican youth! No man can 
be fit to govern, but he who has-first learned to obey; and none 
are competent guardians of such liberties as we enjoy, who are not 
convinced that a religious and patriotic obedience to duly consti- 
tuted authority, is a primary duty of an Annerican citizen. 

Thus might I go on, tracing to the same source, viz: false and 
vicious notions of liberty, the endless divisions in our ecclesiastical 
bodies. Time-honored and long-tried creeds and confessions of 
faith are now rashly thrown aside as trammels of free inquiry; — 
the authority of vei^rable experience is disregarded, antiquity is 
the broad target of u^Wersal abuse, and forms and usages of reli- 
gious corporations, proved to be salutjiry by the evidence of their 
advantages rendered throughout a lohg tract of time, must stand 
aside and give place to individual discretion. The principle of 
restraint, so necessary and so salutary, that there can exist no 
government without it, is increasirrgly odious to minds intoxicated 
with this spurious spirit of liberty^' and is beginning to be viewed 
as incompatible with freedom. ,':, 

T submit it to every dispassionate-aisd reflecting mind what, under 
such influences, can we look for in the mass ofthe communitj', but 
frequent violence, insubordin^on and disregard for wholesome 
law and public authority; in other words, fearfully rapid strides of 
liberty towards lawless licentiousness; when parental, scholastic 
and ecclesiastical authority are broken down and trampled in the 
dust? If the discipline ofthe family, the school and the sanctuary 
of God is relaxed, what of evil may we not expect in a country and 
under a government like ours? If our youth grow up strangers to 
that wholesome restraint which trains the mind to habits of order, 
said to be heaven''s first law, w^hat has the teacher to expect when 
that youth is transferred to his care? And if, during the period 
of academic and coll egiate culture, that youth refuses the measure 
of <:ontroi so indispensable at this season, and passes from the col- 



lege to the world, a perfect novice to all principles of obedtence to 
authoritj, what has society to expect from him? Will he, who has 
been lawless from his very -cradle, be a law-loving citizen, when 
surrounded by the tempting popular evils of our day? No, my 
friends, we are not so weak as to look for such changes of character. 
The parent was to that youth God's representative on earth; filial 
respect, which is the foundation of respect for God, was wanting 
in that mind. Religion has but iitile to hope for there. The 
teacher in vain interposes his authority over such mind, and powerj 
less are the laws and institutions of society in subsequent life. 
False notions of liberty running through the various social relations/ 
and striking iirst at parental authority, are now eflecting this 
lamentable abrasion of public order. Hence the caustic sarcasm 
of that powerful writer, Isaac Taylor, "that 'excellent liberals' 
of England who visit America, return home 'as excellent Tories,' 
i. e., monarchists*" 

Am I in error in allowing the painful apprehension, that we must 
repair to the family and to the school, 0hhe college and to the 
sanctuary, if we would view the beginnings of those evils to which 
I have adverted! Is it fact, or mere idle imagination that the 
youth of our land are less carefully trained to a prompt obedience 
to their parents than they ought to be? And is parental control 
as long continued over them as it was formerly. Has not the 
sagacious enemy of God and man taken an artful advantage of the 
Christian institution of Sunday schools, which have done so much 
for the world, and tempted the parent to relax his own personal 
vigilance under the impression that the Sabbath scJiool teacher 
would supply the deficiency? Dftjiot the facilities of self-mainte- 
nance, so universal in the West, too early allure our young men 
from the guidance of the parent's eye, and the restraints of the 
parent's authority ? Is not domestic insubordination more common 
than it used to be, and too little co-operation extended to the 
teachers of youth in carrying forward wholesome discipline/' The 
facilities of education in our land have rapidly increased for some 
few years; but have not discipline and authority decreased? I 
hear but one voice from the band of teachers East, West, North 
and South. I view them as occupying a post of unsurpassed diffi- 
culty, and as contending more with the growing perplexities of 
discipline, than with all other obstacles that JStTbc named. 



T7 

The theme of our remarks, therefore, is one of incalculable 
interest to them as Christian patriots, and friends of science. 
Their happiness in official duly, their ability for usefulness, and 
their fond hopes for the future prosperity of their pupils, are aW 
implicated in the principles for which we have been contending. 
Under God, much depends upon the kind, yet unbending tirmness 
of this most important class of men. While I must point first to 
the family as the fountain, alike of the evils of insubordination, as 
of the cure of these evils, I would in the same breath, respectfully 
appeal to the body of American teachers and professoss, as having 
a fearful responsibility lodged in their hands. I rejoice in the for- 
mation of the association known as the Western College of Pro- 
fessional Teachers, in confident hope that it will more justly define 
and elevate the position of teachers, and strengthen their authorilijt 
But I long to see them every where " suaviter in mode et fortiter 
in re," urging and insisting upon the duty of order and subordina- 
tion; training the youthful mind to right habits on this matter, and 
carefully resting this duty upon its only true basis, religion and 
patriotism. Wretchedly will they acquit themselves io God and 
the State, unless they educate their pupils in obedience as well as 
in mental vigor; in habits of order and sacred reverence for law 
and public authority, as well as in the elements of polite and use- 
ful learning. 

I would here venture to give utterance to the hope, that the 

priciple for which we have been contending, may be held sacred 

by the patrons and officers of Miami University — that parents and 

guardians may remember it in their support of the Faculty, and 

that the Faculty may respect it in their administration of the affairs 

of this seat of learning; regarding themselves as doing incalculable 

damage to the youth of our country, if they cultivate their minds 

even to the very highest degree, and yet fail in the cultivation of 

the finer qualities of the heart and the conscience ; and so send forth 

their alumni as so many Catalines, to defy law and trample upoa 

authority; or as doing lasting, noble service to these youth, if they 

dismiss them, to the high vocation of American citizens, embellished 

with the learning of early and of later times, strengthened with the 

might of sound knowledge, and qualified themselves to govern, by 

having first learned to obey. I look, then, first to the family, next 

to the church of Qod^and to the District School, the Academy and 

C 



18 , 

the College, to educate th« national conscience, and elevate the 
national mind and heart. 

I would not have the American parent lead his child to the 
altar, after the example of the ancient Carthagenian, and there 
swear eternal enmity to a foreign foe ; but I would have him point 
his offspring to the examples of the illustrious leaders of the Revo- 
lution; to such men as the immortal Washington, Hancock, the 
elder Adams, Robert Morris, Patrick Henry, and others, whose 
every pulse beat strong with the purest love of liberty, but ever 
defined that liberty to be, the government of wholesome law; and 
with such men in view, teach them that they live in a land of which, 
to use the word of Yattel, "liberty is the soul, the treasure, and 
the fundamental law," and that consequently their great duty is, to 
identify their own honor with that of their country, and their own 
respectability with the sacredness of every form of public authority 
duly constituted, regarding the honor of their country, and the 
majesty of her laws as the vast ramparts of her freedom. 

If this obligation of religious and patriotic obedience to public 
authority could be universally diffused in families, in schools, in 
seminaries and colleges, and also in our ecclesiastical bodies, the 
moulds of the national sentiment, 1 should have no fears for the 
destinies of our beloved country. With it at the helm, I am willing 
to trust the characteristic ardor of American youth; I would 
freely fan its flame, nor fear its excess; literary and scientific am- 
bition would be safe; since if the candidate strove, he would strive 
lawfully, nor wish a single honor which he may not honorably win. 
With it, political ambition is safe, the gross personality, and the 
virulent abusiveness of the party press would be checked, for obe- 
dience to laws and constitutions would ever check the inordinate 
aspirant. W ith a tender and honorable sensibility to the majesty 
©f public laws and authority, I have no apprehensions on account 
of the influx of foreigners to our shores, but would rejoice to see 
our country open wide her capacious bosom, and give the stran- 
ger a welcome so warm and cordial, as to melt him at once into 
union with the native born citizen, and fill him with generous 
attachment to the land of his adoption. 

I have no forebodings for our free institutions, so long as love of 
order, and devotion to the preservation of public authority take 
the lead , animated and sustained by the eolemn sanctions of religion, 



19 

and the nobie breathings of patriotism; but if these give way and 
recede before the frenzied forms of lawless violence, we as a people 
are gone, and the hope of the world will expire, or faintly live, amid 
the dying embers of American greatness. I seem to view the 
genius of our country, looking from her lofty sphere with calm- 
ness and composure mingled with pity, on Europe in arms, and 
Asia and Africa in chains! In her fair face not a single feature 
indicates the least apprehension. But when her eye turns from 
abroad and traverses the moral and political aspect of our land, the 
expression of conscious security is exchanged for one of deep 
anxiety. I read in her countenance the warning which seems to 
say. Mo foreign weapon can ever inflict a mortal wound upon the 
vitals of American freedom, but may the God of nations save us 
from the inglorious grave of national suicide! 



AFPENr)IX. 



The extracts which follow, the author introduces from a tract 
entitled, " Religious Education," written by the Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Meade of Virginia. The whole tract should be read by every 
American parent, and by none with more prayerful consideration, 
than by those who live in the West. 

" The most abject and disgraceful of all vassalages is that of 
parents to children. And how often is this seen when the child 
can scarce speak to issue its commands. That perpetual activity 
which belongs to children is ever in exercise to do mischi^/, and 
whenever parents yield up their authority there is no reno^dy for it. 
The parent, it may be, commands, but the child heed? not, and, as 
usual, disobeys. The parent, it may be, exclaims, surely my child, 
you were never thus before; when, in truth, the child is always 
thus, and the parent has been guilty of a falsehood in the presence 
of the conscious child, and how can the child respect such a parent. 
If the child wants any thing, no matter how improper, it must have 
it, or a violent burst of passion, perhaps a blow at the parent or 
the nurse is the consequence, and in all probability it then gains 
its point. Thus, at an early age, does it become a trouble and 
disgrace to its parents, and an annoyance to all around. Thus 



20 

does the spirit of rebeliion grow with its growth and strengthen 
jvith its strength, and wh^n the age of reason arrives, the poor 
child is a complete slave to self-will and passion. What will bri- 
bery, persuasion, argument, now do (awards the establishment of 
parental authority? Had the father and mother began betimes, 
while there was hope, to exercise the Heaven-ordained authority, 
that authority would have strengthened with exercise ;and the habit 
of obedience in tlie child would have been confirmed more and 
more, until the full grown man would have been counselled almost 
as easily as the child was governed. Mych to the point is the an- 
ecdote of the milk-woman, who gentling the little calf which stood 
at her side, raised its forepart from the ground. The same was 
done each morning and CA'ening, and although the calf continued 
to grow, the task increased not in difficulty; no, not even when it 
became the full grown ox. And why? Because her strength and 
skill increased by exercise, while the docility of the anim.al also 
increased with years, and his size and weight proved no obstacle; 
for, by habit, he lightened the burthen, raising himself up from 
the ground. Now if such be the spirit of obedience in dumb 
brutes towards their owners— if the ferocious beasts of the desert 
can be brought into complete Subjection to those who use the 
needful discipline — surely, by the blessing of God on the prayer- 
ful, persevering, and judicious efforts of parents, little children 
might be subdued and made obedient to those who are over 
tiiem in the Lord. Yes — thank Heaven — this is no doubtful 
point. Instances there have been where not merely fathers, 
but mothers alone, have acquired this early ascendency, keeping 
it duriiiQT ]ife^ and been loved, honored, and obeyed by those unto 
whom thevr word was law. Especially has this been the case, 
where the mother, bereaved of her husband, and the children of 
their father, the whole duty has devolved upon her. That God, 
who in withdrawi^.g from the human body one member, or the hu- 
man soul one faculty, usually adds increased power to the rest, 
is ready to doubt the authority of the widowed mother, and make 
her equal to both parents, 1 knew one such in days that are long 
since gone: tender and kind she was as ever mother, though 
lirm and resolute when occasion ivquired. With a steady hand 
she held the reign over one and all of a numerous household of 
sons and daughters, as though she was the vicegerent of Heaven 



21 

in her family, and she was loved, honored and obeyed, to her last 
expiring breath. That mother had a son who went to a distant 
seat of learning in the land, and there was soon misled bj the de- 
signing; and following the multitude, though only for a {ew short 
moments, signed an instrument which sent him home under cen- 
sure, and under circumstances, too, which strongly tempted him 
to put on the proud rebel, and refuse the acknowledgment of error, 
the only condition of his return. But that mother, though mild, 
yet firm as she was wont to be, bade him go back and make atone- 
ment for the evil committed; and he went and confessed his fault, 
and still lives, to exhort other parents and other sons to go and do 
likewise. At the risk of egotism, the author will state, that his 
own case is the one alluded to. At the age of seventeen, he left 
for the first time the house of the best of mothers, to go to Prince- 
ton College; and with the sincerest resolution to fulfil all her anx- 
ious wishes in his hebalf. Towards the close of the first session, 
some very unworthy young men were dismissed. They contrived, 
however, to impose upon the great body of the others, and induce 
them to believe that they were most unjustly and cruelly treated. 
What was called a petition was gotten up in their behalf and offer- 
ed for the signatures of the rest. Great numbers signed it, scarce 
knowing its contents. It proved to be such a one as the Faculty 
could not with propriety listen to, or allow to pass unnoticed. — 
We w^ere required to withdraw our signatures, and it was so 
managed by the leaders of the rebellion, that the College was 
broken up in confusion, and all returned home. It was then that 
I felt the excellency of maternal authority, which great numbers 
felt not, for they did not return. Soon after my return, my 
thoughts were seriously turned to religion and the Gospel ministry. 
How otherwise with me it might have been, had I been permitted 
to take my own way, God only knows. As a warning to the young 
men of our land, let me say, that it required nearly thirty years 
to repair the injury done to that institution, by that proceeding of 
unreflecting and misguided youths. Let me warn them to beware 
how they ever assemble together for the purpose of consulting 
how to redress the supposed wrongs of their fellow-students, and 
above all, how they set their names to any instrument purporting 
to be a condemnation of those in authority. Very seldom indeed 
will the Faculty mistake in their judgments concerning those who 



22 

are the subjects of discipline. All of those for whom the petitien 
alluded to was offered, proved to be most unworthy characters, and 
in my many and extensive journies throughout the length and 
breadth of our land, since that time, I have met with very many of 
those who were most zealous in the cause, but never with one who 
did not regret and condemn the part which he had taken in it.— 
On this subject, let me say one word to parents, in behalf of the 
schools and colleges in our land. Heavy indeed are the com- 
plaints of teachers and professors against you in this respect. 1 
hear them wherever I go. You are considered as the great ob- 
stacles to the right government of youth in our literary institutions 
of every grade. Those who have charge of your children declare 
that you withhold your support from them in the most trying 
emergency; that your blind partiality to your sons leads you to 
receive any statement they may make, or your false views of dis- 
cipline lead you to paliate,if you justify conduct which is perfectly 
inadmissable in a well-ordered institution. They declare that it 
seldom happens that a youth is dismissed, without finding in the 
.parent one to justify him and condemn them. In illustration of 
the great laxity of authority in some parents, and the most unjus- 
tifiable sentiments of others, 1 would mention that I received from, 
undoubted authority concerning three youths in one of the distant 
colleges in our land. A short time after one of them had reached 
the college, he violated some law, and was reproved by the profes- 
sor. He wrote lo his father that the professor had insulted him. 
The father immediately took up his pen and wrote, " my son, go 
and purchase for yourself the largest cane in the place, and break. 
it over the professor's head." The other two wrote to their father 
that after having tried the college for a few weeks, they were not 
pleased with it, and without any permission had moved to another 
college, and had taken up their lodgings in a tavern. Thus it is 
that the sops, not the fathers, choose and change their colleges at 
pleasure; and thus it may come to pass, that our colleges, instead, 
of .being nurseries of patriots, and warriors, and statesmen, who 
have, as of old, learned to command, by first learning to obey, may 
send forth lawless rebels, and daring revolutionists, to subvert the 
fair fabric of this noble republic. 

" On the subject of correction, the author wishes not to be mis- 
underitood. While he professes not to be wiser than Solompn;, 



23 

while he has no sympathy with that new system of moral suasion 
which entirely rejects the rod, which connected with reproof gave 
wisdom of old, yet he hesitates not to say, that must be a badly 
managed family, school, or society of any kind, where the rod is 
much used. It should be chiefly used, when required, at an early 
age, and that for the purpose of establishing authority. But seldom 
need it be resorted to afterwards, where right government is adopt- 
ed, and then chiefly to show that if necessary, it must be used. — 
Let that be well understood and seldom will it be needed. It may 
not be amiss here to say, that far the greater part of the scoldings 
and corrections of parents are decidedly injurious, from the man- 
ner in which they are done. They are of such a nature as may 
provoke, and not subdue, the rebellious spirit or the evil temper. 
When the rod is used, it should be though not angrily and furiously, 
yet so decidedly, and in such an eflfectual manner, as to show that 
the parent will be obeyed." 



ERRATA. 



in the introductory notice, last line, read «• Macdill," instead of «'Mabdill," 
^Iso, fifth line from bottom, read '•' McMillin," instead of '• Millin." 
Page seven, line nine, read ''important," for importune. 
" « " 26, " <-in," for on. 

omit the "a" before the word waning. 
" ''effectiveness" instead of expectiveness. 
a a our" for or. 

« insert a comma, instead of a period. 
" omit the "a" before the word licentiousness 
" "charge" for change. 



8 


(( 


17, 


9 


a 


18, 


a 


a 


25, 


10, 


a 


4, 


11, 


a 


21, 


12, 


<ii 


2&, 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF DR. JUNKIN. 



Gentlemen of the Board :' — 

Fellow Citizens, — You expect of me, at this time, some de- 
clarations relative to the functions of that" office, with which jour 
partialities have now formally invested me. This expectation is 
reasonable and right. It is reasonable that, the end being desig- 
nated, and the agency being constituted, some exhibit should be 
presented of the principles, by which the latter proposes to accom- 
plish the former. Concurrence is indispensable among co-opera- 
tors; for, if it do not exist, there must necessarily occur counterac- 
tion, opposition, and loss of force. But in an extended and liberal 
system of education, not those only immediately employed in the 
labor of teaching are operators, but the whole community. You, 
Geatlemen, are fellow-laborers with us. This vast concourse of 
our fellow-citizens have some agency to execute. The legislature 
of the Commonwealth indirectly exercise an important supervision. 
Every parent, guardian, or friend, who may send a diamond hither 
to be polished, has a deep interest in the work, and his knowledge 
before hand of the means of its accomplishment, may enable him 
greatly to facilitate the operation. There must be, to the produc- 
tion of the highest possible success, a universal concurrence of the 
whole mass of society. The humble agency of the wash-woman 
is, relatively, as necessary as the signature of the Governor to an 
important bill ; the patient labor of the wood-cutter as indispensable 
as the sedentary, care-worn toils and spirit-exhausting vigils of the 
professor. If, therefore, there be no mutual understanding among 
this multifarious agency, collisions must occur, and the efforts of 
one be contravened by the inactivity or contrary action of another. 

But it is also right thfit every servant of the public should fore- 
stall his accountability, at least so far as general principles are 
concerned. Public employment, where man is free, is always the. 



26 

result of agreement, compact, covenant; and the mutual under^ 
standing of the parties is indispensable — at least, it is highly con- 
ducive to the fulfilment of their respective engagements. Let 
every public agent, and especially every professional agent, have 
clearly defined his field of labor — the exact service to be perform- 
ed; — and let him with as exphcit clearness, sketch out his plans 
for accomplishing it, then may we expect undisturbed action in 
the social machinery, and a perfect combination and concentration 
of all its powers towards the one grand result. 

Let me not, however, excite expectations which I do not mean 
to meet. It is not my design, on tliis occasion, to discuss the gene- 
ral subject of education; nor to agitate any of the various ques- 
tions concerning the relative importance of its particular branches; 
nor even to describe, to any extent, the methods intended to be 
pursued here; or to remark upon those of any other similar insti- 
tution at home and abroad. These subjects, important in them- 
selves and in their bearings upon the great end of education, I 
think it advisable to pass by for the present, and that for two rea- 
sons. First — because they have all been discussed ; some of them 
very extensively and very ably; and I should probably add little 
to what has already been said, and well said, by others. But my 
principal reason is drawn from the magnitude and importance of 
another subject which lies beyond these, and runs deeper than 
them ail. 

Every person who has been in a school but for a few hours, and 
has kept his eyes and ears open, must have perceived, that in the 
order of nature its government stands first, and, in importance, is 
transcendant. It matters little what be the methods of teaching 
and what the branches taught, if there is no government, there can 
be nothing done efficiently; whereas great defects in method and 
deficiency in matter, are often overruled and counteracted by a 
happy tact for government; so that you will find the success of a 
teacher, very often, vastly disproportionate to his talents and 
attainments in learning. Every good school is a monarchy, but of 
the patriarchal character. Now a monarchy is the best of all go- 
vernments, if the monarch be a perfect moral being. The sceptre 
must be swayed by the hand of benevolence. The monarch must 
be an incarnation o( loie and decision] the absence of decision pro- 
duces anarchy, the absence of /ope^ despotism. 



' But now, if these things be so in a school — if government here 
among children, is every thing, how much more important in a 
College of young men, where budding ambition ill brooks restraint, 
and where genius, sometimes real, but most frequently imaginary, 
claims exemption from the ordinary trammels of law! If self-will, 
that enemy of all that is good, is difficult to repress in the child of 
ten years, how much more difficult in the child of twenty; — espe; 
cialjy if the intermediate ten year's training have been under the 
anarchist system, which makes the will of the governed, the rule 
of administration!'. From the infant-school to the university, the 
prime difficulty in every literary institution, lies in its government. 
If that be well conducted, every thing else can be easily accom- 
plished. No difficulty can well arise where the end is plainly 
pointed out, the means specifically arranged, and all concerned 
perfectly acquiesce in their application. I therefore invite your 
attention to the subject of most commanding interest to this insti- 
tution — viz: the principles on which it is to be governed. But as 
I believe in the absolute unity of moral truth ; and as we are bound 
to exhibit it to the utmost of our capacity, and thereby to do as 
much good as possible by our labor, 1 propose to present the doc- 
trines I hope to practice in a free and detatched form, easy of 
application to all modes of government, and proceed accordingly 
to consider, The origin, unity, and power, of Moral L\w. 

By moral laii;^ I understand the rule according to which moral 
beings act. As in physics a law of nature is the mode of influence, 
so in morals the law is the rule of action. 

Now, if in the department of natural science, we inquire for law, 
we are limited to a single method. We can discover the laws of 
ijature only by the observation of phenomina, or facts, as they occur. 
Experiment as a source or means of discovery, is observation preced- 
ed by the voluntary action of the observer, with a view to bring 
about the facts. But whether the philosopher himself cause the 
facts to occur, or they occur by the agency of nature simply, is a 
matter of no concern as to results; it is o6se?Ta7zo?i still, and nothing 
but observation. Whether Newton saw the apple fall from the tree 
spontaneously, or whether he or another person threw it upward 
and observed its descent, is entirely indifferent as to the discovery 
of the law of gravitation. It is observation that makes the discovery, 
and that power of the mind by which we trace resemblances, that 



28 

is, mark the agreement or disagreement of things — and^this is the 
leading natual faculty of the human spirit— it is this that enables 
us to classify the facts of observation and thus to acquire a knowl- 
edge of physical laws. These laws existed before the observer 
opened his eyes. Apples fell from trees prior to the days of Sir 
Isaac, and the lever was used a thousand times in constructing 
Noah's ark, long before the philosopher of Syracuse demanded a 
fulcrum as his only postulate for lifting the world. Existence pre- 
cedes observation and consequent discovery. All human science 
is but the faint reflection of Divine knowledge, embodied in things 
that are. All man's knowledge of physical laws is but a fugitive 
page torn from some one of the volumes of divine legislation. God 
alone is the author of nature's laws. He only can legislate for the 
universe of matter. 

And is mind less dependant on its Maker? Ts the ethereal spirit, 
because more active and like its Creator, less under the control of 
laws? And are these laws less the emanations of the Divine will 
and power, than those of matter? — or their discovery more diffi- 
cult, or their origin more occult? Far from it. The dependence 
of the intellectual and moral world on him that formed the body 
and fashioned the spirit, is as perfect and absolute as that of mat- 
ter; and the law^s of its action are no less an emanation of the 
Divine will and power. The methods and means too of discovery 
here are not less obvious. 

When the moral philosopher would know the laws of the moral 
universe, he proceeds precisely as the natural philosopher does, — 
that is, by observation. He opens his eyes upon the vast field before 
him; he notes the facts as they exist; he marks their sequences, 
or orders of existence; these he arranges and classifies; and when 
his class of facts is sufficiently numerous to constitute the basis of 
a firm belief that such is always the order of their occurrence, he, 
like the student of physical nature, has discovered a law in the 
moral w^orld. For example, he observes that the son who treats 
with disrespect his parents, soon falls into vices and follies innu- 
merable, prostitutes his talents, dissipates his fortune, the product 
of parental industry and care, reduces himself to beggary, destroys 
his health and dies before his time. He notes similar facts in 
other instances, and, having classed these together, deduces the 
general conclusion, that the moral law of man's nature requires 



29 

children to honor their father and mother under pain of shortening 
and embittering their days. " The eye that mocketh at his father, 
and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall 
pluck it out, and the young eagles shall eat it."* 

Again he observes a young man regardless of the sacred institu- 
tions of religion, — he contemns the sanctuary of God and treats 
the systematic instructions of the Sabbath with scornful neglect. 
This young man is soon seen in evil company; his manners are 
corrupted; he becomes idle and dissolute; his animal appetites 
having not the ordinary checks, take command of him; — those 
principles of his being which should be governed, themselves 
assume the reigns and govern; — his course is downward and the 
end is destruction. Another, and another,and yet others, he notes^ 
where similar antecedents precede similar consequents; he classi- 
fies these and is shut up, according to the Baconian mode of philo- 
sophising, to the conclusion, that where there is no fear of God 
before men's eyes, they are hastening to destruction — disregard of 
religion leads to corruption of morals. Here is a law of our moral 
nature, the knowledge of which we acquire by induction. 

But now, these laws existed before the moral philosopher, who 
discovered them. His discovery is no more the creation or estab- 
lishment of moral laws, than the discoveries of Archimides and 
Newton, are the enactment of physical laws. The law exists 
prior to its publication — it exists in nature, physical, intellectual, 
and moral. But nature — what is nature? What but the sum of 
properties, attributes or qualities of any thing and every thingl 
And whence these qualities, attributes and properties? Are they 
not all from the great Author of nature? Is being any thing more 
the creature of God, than its attributes are? And do we know 
any being but by its qualities? If, then, the knowledge of the 
properties of matter is to us the science of its laws, which laws exist 
independently on, and antecedently to, that science, must it not 
be so also in regard to mind and its properties? Must not, there- 
fore, the properties of our moral nature, the knowledge of which 
is to us the science of morals, exist independently on, and antece- 
dently to, that science? If the laws of matter have their origin in 
the will of Him who produced it, must not the laws of mind, intel- 

* Proverbs xxx«: 17. 



30 

lectuarand moral, originate in the will of him who created it? — 
None but the Creator of the physical world could establish the 
laws of its government. None but the Creator of the moral world 
could establish the laws of its government. Yet these laws differ 
as do the respective nalures of them. 

Those of matter maj possibly all relate to the methods by which 
it is moved; those of mind may possibly all relate to the modes of 
its activity. All that is important to my present purpose, is to 
show, that there neither is nor can be any other origin or source 
of morallaw than the will of the great moral Governor. And this, 
I trust, is manifest from the analogical argument here presented. 

The same may be inferred also from the analogies of human 
legislation. There is a legislative power in every civil govern- 
ment ; and its location determines the character of the government, 
[fit be placed in the same hands with the executive power, then 
is that government a despotism, and there is no guarantee for free- 
dom. If it be placed in different hands, and independent on the 
executive power, then is that government not despotic; and if the 
legislators are selected by the subjects of law, then that people 
enjoy civil liberty. But be tlie location vvhere it may — or in other 
words, be the form of government what it may, the characteristic 
of legislation is one and the same; viz: this,/Ae expressed luill of the 
legislative po7cer, is la7v. The will of the autocrat is lavr. The will 
of the aristocracy is law. The will of the representatives, assem- 
bled inlegislative council is law. Every where, and under all 
forms of human government, you tind laws emanating from the 
will of some person or persons invested with power. This plainly 
intimates that the geneial sentiment of mankind has sanctioned the 
principle for which I contend. There is no other source and 
origin of moral law, but the roill of God. 

Moreover, the various attempts of human reformers of law — 
those men who have appeared in' dark periods of the world, and 
recalled their countrymen to something like civilization — their 
attempts to give the sanction of Deity to their legislation, show the 
common belief, that the foundation of this principle is laid in truth 
and nature. Minas, the Cretan law-giver, pretended the sanction 
of Jupiter to his laws; Lycurgus appealed to the Delphic Oracle, 
and Numa Pompilius to the nymph Egeria. That these and others 
of the same character are fabulous, detracts little if any from their 



31 

force as an argument in point ; for they evince the general con- 
viction of mankind, that law originates from supernatural beings; 
and thej accord with the testimonies of true history as dehvered to 
us by the Hebrew Law-giver. To all these deductions agree that 
simple but sublime declaration of our Saviour in the days of his 
flesh, " My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish 
his work." This he also inculcates in the prayer, "thy will be 
done on earth as it is in heaven," plainly and forcibly implying 
that the will of God is law every where throughout his universe. 
The brightest seraph that burns in the courts above, and the hum- 
blest of our apostate race, are equally bound to do the will of God. 
Here is the foundation of power. Hence the outgoings of those 
influences which govern the world. 

By the wiity of moral lazo is not meant that all moral beings have 
the same degree of knowledge and responsibility — that the divine 
will is communicated equally and alike to all. On the contrary it 
is notorious that the extent of its display is exceedingly various. — 
Scarcely any two individuals can be found who would settle the 
scales of knowledge in a perfect equipoise. And it is equally ob- 
vious that as men's opportunities and knowledge are, so are their 
responsibilities. But what I do mean is this: that in all its modi 
fications — in all the multiform aspects in which it can be viewed- — 
amid all the interminable diversities of human condition, yea, and 
of angelic nature too, to which it is applied, the moral law of God 
contains the simple principle, that actual compliance with the will 
of God secures and shall secure happiness; and the neglect or re- 
fusal to comply imposes misery. Upright action— action accord- 
ing to the will of God, and because it is the will of God, is 
uniformly connected with enjoyment and life; and the contrary 
leads to death and woe. This is the essential nature of moral law. 
It holds out reward and punishment, and without both of these it 
would not he law at all; it would be mere counsel or advice. 
Here is the fundamental principle of all morality. Here is the 
original conception, without which no man has any definite notion 
of duty or of sin; of law or of government. Here is the central 
point of the moral universe, where stands Jehovah's throne, and 
whence radiates all the forces which sustain and regulate the move- 
ments of created intelligences. Hence they issue forth in count- 
less millions to fulfil his pleasure, to do the will of him that sends 



32 

them; thither they return to render their account, and be judged 
according to the will of God. 

Such is the grand principle of unity in morals. It is obviously a 
matter of little concern what external things constitute the test of 
obedience to man or angel — whether it be one or one thousand 
acts — whether the moral creature have laid upon him one or one 
thousand requisitions — whether a man's knowledge of his Maker 
will be limited to a few things, or extended to many things — whe- 
ther he be born and die in a pagan or in a Christian land — whether 
the moral agent he a man or an angel — whether Lazarus or Ga- 
briel — the question submitted is, whether he will comply with that 
will of God which is made known io him. The extent of his know- 
ledge may and must affect the degree of his reward or his punish- 
ment as the case may be; but the character of his account and final 
destiny is determined simply by his obedience to the will of God. 
This one principle pervades all intelligent creation of which we 
have any knowledge. In the regions of celestial light, obedience 
to the will of God, secures, increases, and perpetuates the felicities 
of the blessed. In the world of woe, disobedience to the will of 
God, aggravates, increases and perpetuates forever the wretched- 
ness of the lost. In the intermediate world which we inhabit, it is 
and ought to be the duty and privilege of all men to bow submis- 
sive to the will of high Heaven. Every peculiar relation of life 
has its peculiar duties. These duties are taught and enforced by 
the moral power within us, the moment the relations are distinctly 
perceived. AH the power of conscience to moral duty results from 
the instantaneous deductions of reason, upon the perceived relation, 
that it is the will of God. He constitutes the moral relations of 
man to man, and man lo his Maker; — he establishes in the bosom of 
man the power of conscience, of which he alone is Lord, and thus 
secures the result of all holy intelligence bowing submissive to His 
will. Here is the one, all-pervading principle of moral law, the 
grandeur of whose simplicity thrills the bosoms of angelic hosts; 
while it prostrates in profound reverence the consciences of men 
on the earth, and flashes upon the realms of darkness and of death 
that terrific thunderbolt of Pleaven's vengeance — Ye knew the 
w^LL OF God, but did it not. 

The power of moral law, like all other kinds of power, can be 
S€en and known only in the results of its exercise. Physical force 



$3 

can be known only by its effects; and meas^uredorily by the pro- 
portion of its effects. There is nt> absolute rule of measurement; 
it is all relative. And this remark is equally true in physical, 
intellectual and moral science, '^he strength, force or power of 
a man's moral principles, of his mental faculties and his physical 
frame, is measured relatively either to their effects when exerted, 
or to the corresponding qualities in other men. This is the founda- 
tion of that form of speech in all languages by which we draw 
comparisons, which trimmed off" a little become metaphors. ThuSj 
^^ The righteous are as bold as a lion" — " Judah is a lion's whelp."' 
Here metaphor and simile are used to describe relat'tvely, the 
courage and strength of man. The lion's boldness and strength 
is the measure of man's. Just so modern engineers describe the 
power of an engine, by comparing it wilh the vague measure of a 
horse's power. But none of these reveal any secret of absolute 
power; that lies hidden from all human eyes. The original con- 
ception of power in the mind of man is relative; it springs uj3 on 
the view of a change produced by one thing upon another, and so 
it abides. Beyond this no researches of philosophy have ever ad- 
vanced a step — an absokite measure of power is not among the 
inventions or discoveries of human genius. 

Thus also as to our mental faculties. Their strength is known 
only relatively. The productions of genius are a measure of its 
capacity, but very defective. Slumbering energies there may still 
be of which we are ignorant, and must forever remain ignorant, 
unless they shall be embodied in actions <\'hose results come under 
our observation, and thus afford the evidence of their cause and the 
means of comparison with other men; that is, of relative measure- 
ment. There is no absolute measure of mind. 

Equally mercurial and intangible are the moral elements of our 
constitution. Indeed they are more so; because of the derange- 
ment which sin has introduced into this part of our system. This 
is the source whence issue all that debase and enfeeble the powers 
in the other two* departments; and we may reasonably expect the 
waters of bitterness to be most pungent at the fountain head. It 
is through the derangement of our moral nature that the intellect 
is thrown into disturbed action. 0f this truih every man must 
have convinced himself by observation. Who can be ignorant of 
4he effects of violent and malevolent passions in arresting the regu- 

E 



34 

lar movements of the mind? Whose individual experience has not 
taught him a thousand times, the power of sinful desire in breai^ing 
up trains of profitable thought? Who knows not that the corrupt 
affections distract the attention and draw the mind off from its 
legitimate objects of pursuit? 

It may not be pleaded in bar of this remark, that splendid genius 
has been often allied to great corruption. In Byron its corrusca- 
tions dazzle and confound. So they do indeed; and that partly 
because of their own strength and vividness; but partly also be- 
cause of their unexpectedness. As an upward explosion of elec- 
tricity mid the darkness of night, from the surface of the dark 
waters of the dead sea would surprise and confound the traveller; 
S'O the flashes of genius from the stagnant pool of Byron's licentious 
infidelity, dazzle and confound. Men are not prepared for such 
contradictions in nature. And who does not see in this very case, 
that corrupt morality paralyzes even genius? Had Byron's spirit 
been imbued with the piety of Pollok and the moral nerve of Mil- 
ton, who can not perceive that " The Course of Time" might have 
run down, and the " Paradise" been lost? 

But though moral power submits not to any precise rule of 
measurement, yet many things may be predicated of it, highly im- 
portant to every moral governor. He may inquire into its funda- 
mental principles and the mode of its operation upon its proper 
subjects; and this may have a happy influence upon government. . 

Among these fundamentals we must reckon the law of self-love, 
which is implanted in every human bosom. If no desire of happi- 
ness existed, there could be no force exerted upon the rational 
being either through hope or fear. But as such desire is essen- 
tially a part of our nature — as this law is ir^dispensable to our pre- 
servation, it becomes the centre of influences both by hope and 
fear. It is to this that all promises of reward are addressed; to 
this all threatenings of punishment. Without this there can be 
neither the one nor the other. Motive operating upon choice 
would be impossible. 

But now, the power of motive must be in proportion to the 
strength of this desire of happiness; and the mind's apprehension 
of the magnitude of the reward and the punishment respectively. 
If the desire of happiness be strong and overpowering, and the 
blessing promised as a reward to obedience, and the punishment 



35 

threatened on disobedience, be gloriously and fearfully great; the 
motive will have a prevailing energy; and this will be greatly 
enhanced by the belief of absolute certainty in the connection be- 
tween the moral conduct and its reward. Where there is laxity 
in the administration of government, and, consequently, great un- 
certainty as to the conferring of reward and the infliction of pun- 
ishment, there, however great both may be, their force is destroyed 
by the uncertainty; and that government must end in cruelty. — 
Because its laxity will encourage crime, and the multiplication of 
crime will create a necessity for either an explosion of power or a 
revolution. That involves cruelty, and this destruction. 

From these remarks it must be an obvious deduction, that the 
practical force of moral law will be proportional to the appre- 
hended ability of the moral governor to render the subjects of law 
happy or miserable; and the apprehended fixedness ot his purpose 
to carry out his principles. If the subjects of law verily believe, 
that every transgression and disobedience shall infallibly receive a 
just recompense ; and on the other hand, every virtuous action shall 
be fully rewarded with happiness; and if they believe that these 
rewards and punishments, because of the power and holiness of the 
governor will be inconceivably great, then will motive have its 
highest power and the law an irresistible energy. 

Let us now carry out this simple analysis of moral law, and its 
modus operandi, in reference to the Creator's government; and we 
shall have a magnified view of the amplitude of its range, and the 
energy of its operation. 

The amplitude, of its range. This I have already said, is co-exten- 
sive with the moral universe. There is not a rational intelligence 
in heaven, earth, or hell, beyond its reach. The will of God has 
been made known to them all, less or more extensively, as the rule 
of their action; and their moral judgments have fixed and defined 
the extent of their obligations. 

It covers our world. It places the autocrat and the beggar alike 
under its commanding requisitions. It reaches the extremes of 
society and of government, and embraces all within them. It re- 
pudiates the idea, that there is one code of morals for the rich, and 
another for the poor; one for the private citizen, and another for 
the public functionary; one for the farmer, another for the 
mechanic, and another for the merchant, and yet another for the 



36 

professional man. On the contrary, this one mighty principle of 
morality — the will of God must he obeyed — ascends the throne and 
the Presidential chair; it pervades the hialls of legislation, and de- 
mands that laws and their executors be insubordination to the will 
of God. The husband and the wife, the parent and the child, the 
master and the servant, the living, and the dying, and the dead, all 
are equally amenable to the will of God^ It descends with the 
miner to the bowels of the mountains; it ascends with the aeronaut 
above the clouds; its power is felt in the peaceful cottage, and yet 
it d wells w ith the tempest tossed mariner on the masthead ; it rules 
in the civic procession, and the storm of battle is subject to its 
power. The Greenlander in his snow built hut bows to the will 
of God; the European in his marble mansion, bows to the will of 
God; the African on his parched sands, bows to the will of God. 
Lo! the amplitude of range — it girdles the globe, and binds it to 
the footstool of it its Maker's throne.. 

Let us advert for a moment to the energy of its operation. 

This is seen first in the easy resolution of all questions of doubt- 
fulness in morality. We have only to inquire what ^s the will of 
God in this? That settled, the path of duty is plain, and then. 

We have the spirit of unbending integrity. He in whose soul 
this principle is settled, knows nothing but the divine will; and 
fins never can lead him astray into the wayward paths of folly and 
of crime; and thus, 

We havp. the spirit of true heroism. The energy of this divine 
rule lifts him \ip above the fear of all created things. The fear of 
God is the all-absorbing affection of his soul, and he knows no other 
fear. Obstacles apparently insurmountable may stand before him, 
and obstruct his path of duty; but onward he presses in the face 
of them all. Tell him, " there's a lion in the way, you'll be de- 
voured." Be there a hundred lions in the way, that is the way 
which by the will of God I am bound to go; he'll take care of the 
lions. " But if you hold on to Vhese principles of yours, you will 
suffer loss of goods, and be scourged, and be burned as an heretic." 
Let them confiscate my goods and scourge and burn me, to whom 
my Lord may give the power; I am not accountable for these 
consequences; 1 am responsible only for this, that I obey the will 
of God. 

Such is the simple principle whose application it is believed 



37 

would produce the most felicitous consequences in every social 
organization; and whose absence from any, must induce most dis- 
astrous results. Let us note some of these results and the manner 
of avoiding them. 

There is a sentiment prevalent to a dangerous extent in our 
country, precisely analogous to, or rather identical with the popu- 
lar apprehension of that figment of law, in the British constitution, 
which affirms, that the king can do no wronj^. With us the peo- 
ple are sovereign, the majority is king; and the doctrine is often 
avowed as a maxim, that the people, i. e., the majority, are the 
living constitution — whatever they do is right from necessity. The 
will of the sovereign is law, for the king can do no wrong. Now 
1 suppose that with this as a datum, and a small portion of that logic 
which is commonly found among bodies of men a little excited, 
it will be easy to demonstrate, that Judge Lynch's decisions must be 
infallibly correct — that, as he is the highest judicial functionary 
in the land — sitting next to the king and in his very presence — there 
can be no appeal from him, and ought to be no stay of execution 
after his sentence is pronounced. " Are not the people, say they, 
that is, the majority, the living constitution? And if the constitu- 
( tion, surely the law! Are they not above the law and above the 
constitution! Are not law and constitution the creatures of the 
people; and can the creatures be superior to their creator! Pre- 
posterous absurdity! On with the tar and feathers— and now set 
them on fire — the judge so decides; and here the sovereign signs 
the death warrant, and the king can do no wrong." Such is the 
doctrine on which the mobocracy of our country is founded, and 
manifestly, it is but a trifling perversion of the English maxim, 
" the king can do no wrong." 

But now it is easy to see, that if this doctrine and these reason- 
ings be correct, we have not, properly speaking, any fixed system 
of government at all : it is a mere organized mob ; and may assume 
a dififerent form the next time any multitude come together. With 
such views prevalent in a community, could there be any safety to 
persons or property? And if not, how long could such a govern- 
ment endure? It may be well for us therefore to look into this 
plausible sophistry. A little logic may save the nation, as a little, 
and but a little sophistry may tear up from its deep foundations. 



38 

and hurl down into everlasting ruin, the fair temple of freedonfi 
itself. 

Towards unravelling this web of fallacy, let me observe, first, 
that the English maxim, '* the king can do no wrong," is entirely" 
misapprehended. " It is not to be understood, (says Blackstone,) 
as if every thing transacted by the government, was of course just 
and lawful — but means only two things. First, that whatever is 
exceptionable in the conduct of public aflfairs is not to be imputed 

to the king, nor is he answerable for it personally to his people. 

And, secondly, it means that the prerogative of the crown extends 
not to do any injury; it is created for the benefit of the people, and 
therefore can not be exerted to their prejudice."* And a little 
farther on he adds — " The king, moreover, is not only incapable 
o^ doing wrong, but even o[ thinking wrong; he can never mean to 
do an improper thing; in him is no folly or wickedness." By the 
king in all this is meant the law— the principles of right rule; 
whereas the blame is left on the heads of the kings personal ad- 
visers or deceivers. Accordingly there is another and a prior 
maxim, of deep importance and indispensable to the right under- 
standing of this; viz: " rex debet esse sub lege, quia rex facit regemf^ 
that is, " the king ought to be under the law, for the law makes 
the king." Here is affirmed the supremacy of the law above all 
the agents of its execution. The king himself— i. e., the person 
of the king, is subject to the law. Thus it will be seen, that even 
in the theory of the British monarchy, the eternal principles of the 
law are above king, lords and commons. There is no power in 
the government to destroy right. If the men who hold the reins 
attempt it, the law will rise in the omnipotence of its power and 
destroy them. Witness the fate of Charles Stuart and his unhappy 
house. 

The next fallacy in the mob-logic to which your attention is call- 
ed, is that of gratuitous assumption! "We are the people, the 
people are above the law and the constitution, therefore our de- 
cision must stand, and we will do all our pleasure!" Here is one 
gratuitous and false assumption standing upon the shoulders of 
another. It is assumed, first, that the people, that is, a majority of 
the zvhole people are omn/p/m/— that their decision is necessarily 

* Blackstone's Commentaries. Chapter VII. 



39 

law and right; and then it is assumed, that this partial collection of 
individuals — amounting to only a /ew hundreds or thousands — are 
that self-same omnipotent people — a small fragment are the whole 
and a majority of that fragment are the whole people — the living 
constitution. Such is the reasoning of that wilful king who can do 
no wrong. 

But there is yet a third fallacy; which springs from a mistake 
as to the nature and design of a written, or of an unwritten consti- 
tution. What, let me ask, is the grand design of a constitution? 
Is it not to protect weakness against the exertions of power? — 
What is the celebrated Magna Charta, extorted by the spirit of 
liberty at Runnemede, from king John, but a written guarantee of 
power, that it shall not oppress the weak? And in a country 
where power is determined by numbers, what is the constitution, 
but a charter of protection to the minority? The majority shall 
rule. This is fundamental in our political structure. But the 
majority shall be ruled by the constitution, this is fundamental in 
our social compact. There is law above the highest executor of 
law — Lexfacit regem. The sovereignty is in the law itself, not in 
the minister of the law. He is a mere creature of law, whethe 
men choose to call him President, king or emperor. 'Tis the law 
that holds the omnipotent sovereignlt/. For the establishment of this 
glorious doctrine, our fathers in the British Isles, struggled and 
fought and bled for live centuries. And gloriously did they tri- 
umph. Does any one ask where these semi-barbarians found this 
noble truth? I answer, in the word of God. " By me kings reign 
and princes decree justice." The magistrate, " is the minister of 
God." " We ought to obey God rather than men." 'i'he will of 
God is the eternal obligation of moral Rature. And if Sir Wm. 
Blackstone means, by " whatever the laws permit," laws enacted 
in consistency with the divine will, then I approve of his definition, 
when he says, that " civil liberty, rightly understood, consists in the 
power ofdoing whatever the laws permit."'^ Nor do I think any of us, 
remembering what veins our blood has coursed for the last five hun- 
dred years, will much object to the lofty boast of his Editior, — " to 
be free, is to be born and to live under the English constitution;" 
for a fortiori, we can transfer the sentiment to our own national 

"* BlaCkstone's Introductory Lecture. Volume I. 6 p. id. 128. 



40 

banner. Who fought for and established the liberties of England ? 
The founders — responds all true history — the founders of the 
American Republic and their fathers. These are the men who 
dictated the great Charter at Runnemede, and three hundred 
years afterwards, obliterated its revocation with the blood of the 
Stuarts. And shall Americans, with these recollections fresh in 
memory, feel an emotion of envy or jealousy at the boasts of British 
freedom? Not at all. 'Tis the work of our ancestors and therein 
we glory. And shall British Whigs curl the lip of scorn at the 
boasts of American freedom. Not at all. 'Tis the work of their 
ancestors, and therein let them rejoice. And shall there be war 
between the only two nations of the world, who have sealed with 
their blood the glorious maxim — Lex facil regem — the law makes 
the king? Forbid it ye friends of freedom and of man. 

Now my fellow-citizens, as there is a constitution, and as there 
must be a constitution, in every free government, in order to its 
freedom, to limit, bind down and confine the officers of government 
in the exercise of the powers entrusted to them; and as we deem 
the writing of the constitution an improvement upon the system 
of our ancestors, it may be well, for a moment, to inquire whence 
this improvement? To whom and to what are we indebted for 
this additional security to human freedom! And here I can delay 
only to refer you to the facts without comment. The Bible is the 
grand written charter of human rights. Wherever the Bible has 
free circulation among the people, and the people are taught to 
read it, there is and must be substantial freedom. But to be more 
specific. I point you (o the summit of Sinai where stood the He- 
brew law-giver, enshrouded in the awful habiliments of the Divine 
glory — there amid the transcendant grandeur of that sublimest of 
all scenes beheld by mortal eyes — amid the fires and the thunder- 
ings of divine power — amid myriads of angels, and through their 
hands he received from Jehovah, the first written constitution for 
man's government — the Maxima Charta of human rights. In this 
law of the two tables we have the first written code — the sum and 
essence of all moral truth. This stands above and beyond human 
consLitulions and laws. To this ihey are all bound to accommo- 
date their legislation. The moment they go beyond and infringe 
this, they no longer bind the human conscience, and the feeblest of 
mortals will turn upon them and say, " we ought to obey God 



rather than men." Here is the prescribed litiHtof moral power 
in human hands. This moral code must be obeyed, for it is the 
will of God. 

Let this principle pervade the entire mass of American popula- 
tion, and how glorious musl; be its results! Let all our legislators 
feel that above and beyond all human constitutions, is the Divine 
code of the two tables — the will of God, by which, and in subjec- 
tion to which all laws must be, in order to bind the human con- 
science, and how pure and safe must be our legislation? Let our 
executive officers have it worked into the texture of their souls, 
that they are God's ministers, as well as men's servants ; and how 
pure and cautious and yet energetic must be their administration. 
Let our judicial officers ascend the tribunal under the solemn re- 
membrance of their responsibility to His final award who shall 
judge the quick and the dead according to the law of the two ta- 
bles; and how grave, and serious, and dignified must be their de- 
liberations, and how conscientious and pure their decisions? 

Let all our people discover the true origin and the abso- 
lute unity of moral law; and especially let them feel the 
energy of its power; and how tranquil must be our elections, and 
how uniformly must they result in the selection of the wisest and 
the best for public servants? " Of all the dispositions and habits,*' 
says the prince of Christian patriots," which lead to political pros- 
perity, religion and moralily are indispensable supports. In vain 
would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor 
to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest 
props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, 
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and cherish them. 
A volume could not trace all their connections with private and 
public felicity. Let it simply be asked, where is the security for 
property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation 
desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts 
of justice; and let us with caution indulge the supposition, that mo- 
rality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be con- 
ceded to the influence of refined education on minds of pecuar struc- 
ture, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national 
-morality can prevail to theexclu^on of religious principle."* Here 
iis the highest human authority in support of the doctrine for which 

• Washington's Farewell Address. F 



42 

I contend; but I rest not even on this high authority. I refer to 
the supreme legislator of him before whom Washington humbled 
himself; for it was the highest glory of this highest patriot, to bow 
submissive to the will of God. 

Gentlemen of the Board — I have now explained to you the great 
principle, whose application to the government of Miami Univer- 
sity, can not fail to raise it to the summit of literary fame. It re- 
mains to point out, — and it must be done briefly, — the manner of its 
application. For this application, jou have selected the agency* 

By the very nature of its organization, the Faculty of a College 
must be the depository of its governing power. 'The power, be it 
remembered, is in the law; but the direction of it is in the execu- 
tive. That executive is the Faculty or body of Professors. True, 
on the President mainly devolves the duty of ruling, but not exclu- 
sively. 1 am no monarchist, and never will govern any body of 
human beings by myself, simply and alone. But I am very willing 
to bear my relative part in this administration, or any other, even 
though that be a heavy and responsible part; if, as I trust is here 
the case, it be clearly the will of God. But no President of a Col- 
lege can avail much for its well-being, unless there be the perfect 
concurrence and most hearty cooperation of his fellow members 
of the Faculty. And it is a peculiar felicity, for which I feel truly 
grately to Him who marks out the paths of the planets and the, 
bounds of every man's habitation, that here, as in my former abode 
1 can say, the Faculty is a Unit. And every body of men, who 
have but one heart, and that heart thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of my leading principle, are in their proper sphere, omnipo- 
tent for good. They can do every thing that's right. 

The government of a College is an idiosyncrasy among literary 
institutions. It has not the power of the rod — such is common law 
at least — physical force is not brought in as in academies and 
schools as a means of operating upon the moral sense. It is not a 
civil government, although it bears certain irhportant relations to 
it. Its court is not a court of law but of conscience-, it of course 
can not be bound by any technicalities derived from civil pro- 
ceedings. Its power extends only to excision. It is much more 
nearly allied to ecclesiastical than to civil government. Indeed, 
all the earlier Colleges were in name and thing ecclesiastical foun- 
dations; and there is little of substantial exception in this until the 
present day. Classical literature never has had, and it has not 



43 

now, any sure defence, any safe guardianship but the church 6t 
God. The Christian nriinistry are the bulwark of its protection. 
But for the power of religion, classical learning would speedily 
vanish from the earth ; and how long science would flourish without 
literature may be inferred from the fact, that it has always followed 
in its wake. Literature may exist without an extended science; 
but science can not be perpetuated in the absence of literature. 

Now the government of a College being thus, like that of any 
true church, purely moral, is compelled to feel its dependence 
upon the exhibition of truth addressed to the moral sense of the 
student. Accordingly it has been and it ever will be my principal 
aim — my leading object, in filling up the measure of duty within 
my particular sphere, lo commend myself to every student's con- 
science in the sight of God. Success here is success every where. 
If the minds of young men can only be filled, and possessed and 
absorbed with the conception of their supreme obligation to their 
Creators will; they will need no other government. They will 
then submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's 
sake. And it is impossible that young men of this spirit can ever 
feel themselves burdened and trammelled bylaws good and whole- 
some. How is it possible, by good and upright laws, to trammel 
the action of good and upright men? How is it possible that any 
right-minded youth, should ever feel his liberties infringed by right 
rules? If, as is most true, liberty/ is right action^ who can be so free 
as the man who obeys the truth? Who so base a slave, as the 
man who is driven, by the scorpion lash of his own corrupt lusts, 
right against the sword of justice? Accordingly, all experience 
in College government teaches, that young men, who have the 
fear of God before their eyes — who have it as their commanding 
purpose to do the will of God — who believe that to be free is to 
live under a government of moral law — all young men who regarc 
the sovereign power as residing not in man but in the law, live* 
above the fear of penal discipline, and never give the least trouble. 
On the contrary the conduct of such is itself half the government. 
The law lives in them, and walks in them, and through them com- 
mands the respect, and reverence, and fear of the immoral and 
refractory. Now it is by cultivating the lofty tone of morality, 
which in the hand of the officer recognizes the law, and bows ta 
its supremacy, that we hope to rule unseen and unfelt, except by 
the immoral. The virtuous youth knows indeed that the law rules* 



u 

and to the law he bows, bdcause it is the willjof God ; but to bow his 
neckto human authority, this degradation he can notknow. His will 
is never thwarted; his plans never broken through; because his will 
is acconnnnodated to the law, and he does all his pleasure. Enviable 
freedom this! Happy institution where such young men abound! 

But are we asked, how can we procure such? 1 answer 
from the bosom of pious families. We may not expect them 
but through the co-operation of good men and women all 
over the community. Education must begin in the nursery; 
and in this as in every other good sense, true Christians are the 
salt of the earth. They preserve the College as well as the Com- 
monwealth from total corruption. While on the other hand, false 
Christians — Christians, falsely so called, and open infidels, are the 
parents of profligacy and vice, '-and their word will eat as does a 
canker." A College of such youth could not be governed by law 
at all. Nothing but brute force could avail. Take away the 
sanctions of religion, and you destroy the foundations of society ; 
" let us with caution indulge the supposition," says Washington, 
that morality can be maintained without religion." Hence our 
main and only dependence to sustain a proper tone of morality in 
the College, is the exhibition of religious truth set forth in the Bi- 
ble. The straight forward and fearless exposition of the sacred 
Scriptures is the ark of our safety. Their heavenly doctrine hath 
a power and an energy that reaches the understanding and com- 
mands the judgment, and witli the inward force of conscience, 
I<ring5 the soul into subjection to moral law. If God sanction our 
efforts here — and we have his blessed promise for it — we are safe 
and the community is safe. 

But it may be asked, what if young men will not hearken even 
to the voice of God speaking in his law; what if, in despite of all 
\our efforls toward the instilling of sound principles into their 
minds, and the formation of correct moral habits, they persevere 
in the ways of turpitude and crime? Tlie answer is easj^; we 
iiold up in the law, the sword of justice, and warn off all from its 
glittering point; if, notwith.standing our best eflbrts, any mad 
}outh will rush upon it and impail himseif, wc let him die. His 
blood be upon his own head; our skirls are clear. After the first- 
and second admonition we reject him. The pruning knife is as 
iicccssary as the spade. A \'\ue of such luxuriant growth as this 
inust be headed down; its straggling and cross running branches^ 



45 

removed; or a barren vintage will disappoint our hopes. But 
even in these severe operations, it is our constant effort to let all 
men see that the amputation is not our act. 'Tis the majesty of 
the law, 'Tis the madness of folly braving' the power of moral 
truth. 'Tis suicidal intidelity falling upon the point of its own sword. 

Such, gentlemen, is the principle by which we hope lo secure 
your approbation ; and such, fellow-citizens, the mode of its applica- 
tion, by which we hope tu win your confidence. By protecting the 
virtuous, we shall draw them around us, and, under the sanctuary 
of the law, give them every opportunity of improvement. On]y 
such, we are persuaded, ought to receive a liberal education. — 
Vice has powers for mischief sufficiently great without the aid of 
education. To invest it Avith these additional means of mischief, is 
to put a dagger into the hand of the mad-man. Such a course in 
a College would make it the exuberant source of calamity and dis- 
tress to the community, and thus reverse the very design of its 
creation. The power for good is great, but so is the power for 
evil, in every large literary institution; and manifestly, its character 
must be determined by the principles of its moral code, and the 
strictness of their application. Let young men be trained under 
the discipline of this heavenly rule — my meat is to do the will of 
God. Let them be taught theoretically and practically; ever to 
keep their eye on the law and their feet in the path it prescribes — 
let this be their regem during the four years of their College 
course, and the high probabilities are, that their future lives will 
correspond to the past, and the world be better for their connec- 
tion with it. 7'he demons of vice will exclaim as such men ap- 
proach them: Are ye come to torment us before the time? And 
virtue restored irom her wounds will leap and sing for joy. 

The importan^^ of College government can be fully appreciated 
only by him whose eye looks narrowly into the history of the past, 
the state of the present, and the visions of the future. His retrospec- 
tive glance has already taught him that, for many centuries light — 
the light of religion, and morality, and true science — has been strug- 
gling against darkness ; moral truth has been warring against error, 
and delusion, and death ; the law has been contending for the supre- 
macy ; liberty, the creature of law, for the honor due to its parent. 

This battle he perceives, rages at the present hour with increas- 
ed virulence. Power grasps more and more firmly the mace and 
the sword J while law, with increased energy, seizes upon the un- 



46 

derstanding and the conscience. The sentiment pervades Chris- 
tendom, that the next general war will be a war of opinion; and 
thi^ is probably correct. But it will not be really more a war of 
opinion than that of 1776, or the war of the Long Parliament.^— 

And doubtless it will be a conflict between the same parties 

power and right — brute force and moral law. 

Again, he turns his eye to the visions of futurit}", as the pencil 
of inspiration has painted them on the sacred canvass, and the 
signs of the times reflect them from the clouds of heaven, and he 
perceives that the only king whom the law does not make, is about 
to vindicate the supremacy of the law he made. The probabilities 
are very strong, from the inspection of prophecy, that in about a 
quarter of a century, this issue will be joined on the field of Me- 
giddo,* and the battle will be fought which will terminate, for a 

* That the following allusions may be the better understood, it may be proper 
here to add (which was not contained in the address, as delivered), that the author 
considers the image of Nebuchadnezzar, (see Daniel, chap. iii. ) as a symbolical, 
prophetic history of despotism. This despotism existed under four great uni- 
versal monarchies, viz: The Assyrio-Babylonian, founded by Nimrod, the grand- 
son of Ham, see Gen. x: 8; the Medo-Persian, by Cyrus; the Grceco-Maeedonian, 
by Alexander; and the Latin or Roman, by Romulus; and they are represented 
respectively under the symbols of the golden head, the silver breast and arms, the 
brazen belly and thighs, the iron legs and feet. These monarchies, though differ- 
ent are yet one; they are the living embodiment of tyranny, lording it over the 
body, soul and conscience of man. For above thirty-six centuries has it continued 
to tread on the necks of the nations and to crush them into the dust of degiadation. 

The little stone cut out of the mountain without hands, and which becomes a 
great mountain and fills the whole earth, is the true church of God, or kingdom of 
our Saviour. This, by means of iis pure doctrines and sound morality, is, and 
always has been, at war with the despotic power; and it will ultimately destroy it. 
This war tending to the destruction of the image, or despotic power, will come to 
a close at the end of the " time, times and a half" of Daniel, chap, xii : 7, or, 
which means the same period, the 1260 years, or 42 months of John. Rev. chap, 
xi: 2, 3. The commencement of this period, I suppose to synchronise with the 
rise of the Mahommedan and tlie Papal apostacy in A. D. 606. Its termination 
of course will be A. D. 1866; and will be effected by the combined powers of 
freedom. The place of this battle probably will be the field or plain of Megiddo. 
See Judges i: 27; v: 19. 1 Kings iv: 12; ix: 15. 2 Kings ix: 27; xiii: 29.— 
Zech. xii: 11. It is called in Rev. xvi: 16, Armageddon, i. e., the destruction of 
Megiddo and is generally, and, I think correctly consideied the same as Jezreel, 
and is now called Esdraclon — a valley celebrated in history for bloody and terrible 
battles. "This plain, computed to be about fifteen miles square, is the 'mighty 
plain,' as it is called, of the ancients, and celebrated for more than three thousand 
years as the ' great battle ground of nations.' From here Elijah girded up his 
loins and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel, it was on this plain'that Ba- 
rak went down, and ten thousand men after him, and discomfited Sisera and all 
his chariots; it was here that Josiah, king of Judah, disguised himself, that he 
might fight with Necho, king of Egypt, and fell by the arrows of the Egyptian 
archers. The Assyrian and the Persian, Jews and Gentiles, Crusaders and Sasa- 
cens, Egyptians and Turks, Arabs and Frenchmen, warriors of every nation, have 
poured out their blood on the plains of Esdraclon; and here, said a gentleman 
whom I met in I'alestine skilled in the reading and interpretation of the prophe- 
cies, will be fought ihe great final battle with antichrist, when circumstances 
which are now supposed to be rapidly developing themselves shall bring together 



47 

thousand years at least, (hat despotism which has tyranized over 
the human race from the days of Nimrod. Though this battle, 
like " every battle of the warrior, shall be with confused noise and 
garments rolled in blood," yet will it be a war of opinion. It will 
be the English tongue against Babel — the friends of freedom and 
law, against the combined advocates of despotism and brute force. 
Now it is impossible for a man who has eyes, not to see that in 
a war of opinion, the Colleges of the land must operate a most 
powerful influence. They are manufactures of opinion, — moul- 
ders of the public mind. How fearfully important then, that they 
mould after the perfect example of the glorious Redeemer — that 
the doctrines which emanate from them, be the very truths of un- 
changing and eternal law. And in a universal war for liberty — 
and in a battle which will settle for a thousand years the question, 
whether man shall be bond or iree^ can any man believe that no 
American blood will be shed? I know indeed the wisdom of the 
Washingtonian policy, which teaches us to keep entirely clear of 
European alliances, offensive and defensive. But then I know 
that this last war will be so all-absorbing as to leave no neutrality, 
and assuredly the agency is now on foot, and most actively employ- 
ed in our country, by which, if we were even indisposed to it, we 
will be drawn into the whirlpool. But when the powers shall 
begin to concentrate for the last struggle — when the legitimacy of 
Continental Europe shall, for the last time, menace the liberties 
of the world — when goaded by a priesthood, that has always been 
the right arm of despotism — they shall display a determination to 
stake the final question of freedom or of bondage for the human 
race, upon the issue of a single battle, can any man believe that 
America will stand by a mere spectator! The congregated de- 
pots array themselves on the plain of Jezreel, aiming a final blow 
at the free spirit of law; their thousand gilded banners and their 
millions of swords sparkle and gleam in the bright beams of hea- 
ven. The genius of liberty takes her station on the summit of Mi. 
Tabor, to view the lines hostile and friendly. She darts her bright 
eye along the ranks of the free. But--lo! her cheek turns pale^ 
her heart palpitates, her knees tremble, and with faltering tongue 
she exclaims — " and where, oh! where is the §tar spangled banner, 

ft mighty army of the followers of Christ, under the banner of the cross, to do 
>atlle in his name, and sweep from the earth his contemners and opposers. -- 
Jtkphkns' Ikcidents of Travel. Volume II, Page 271. 



48 

rrom the far distant land of rriy refuge ! Has the eagle's mighty pin- 
ions flagged, ere he passed the wide Allanlic! Or does his piercing 
eye blench at the splendor of yonder dazzling and hostile array!" 

What say you Americans! Can the last battle of freedom be 
fought without you? Sons of Miami University! what say you? 
Shall the field of Armageddon be won without one drop of your 
blood!! Shall no stars and stripes wave in triumph on the summit 
of Mt. Tabor, over the dunn war-clouds of that terrific but glorious 
day!! 

I know your response. I know the response of the American 
people. Such dishonor and disgrace is not the allotment of hea- 
ven, to the sons of those who fought at Bunker hill, at Saratoga, 
at Brandywine, at Yorktown. Oh no, the stars and stripes will 
be there; and should liberty herself fall, the eagle banner will be 
her winding sheet. But liberty will not fall, though many of her 
noblest sons shall bleed. Michael the Prince of the covenant — the 
Captain of our salvation will lead the hosts of freedom and of law, 
on that great day of God Almighty. Then and there N^ill he de- 
monstrate, in the blood of slaughtered millions, that as moral law 
originates w^ith Him, He will award victory to its friends, in the 
destruction of its foes. 

If, then, young men of America, some of you who stand here to- 
day, may be called upon to draw a blade or hold a banner on that 
glorious field; — if, b}^ that day your country shall have numbered 
thirty-five millions, and shall be the strongest Protestant nation in 
the world, and the genius of Freedom shall exclaim to her, " Ho 
to the land with outspreading wings, which is beyond the over- 
flowings of Gush;" if your country is destined to perform a con- 
spicuous part in the last act — in the very catastrophe of that fear- 
ful tragedy which closes with the destruction of despotic power^ 
and results in the establishment of free government, over all the 
nations of the world; how fearfully important it is; because how 
powerfully conducive to the grand result, that you yourself be living 
exr^mples of subjection to law. If the government of your country 
is to be the great examplar, according to which the nations, whom 
her sword shall have aided to make free, shall remodel their po- 
litical institutions; how important that her own be purely a gov- 
ernment of law! Let it then be the high aimof Miami University, 
and of all other Colleges, and of the nation itself, to teach the 
world submission to the will of jGod. 




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